Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 8088770" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/vYnmq7t.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Hearts Aflame at Lan BiangSo far our adventures explored a treacherous mountain pass, a polluted river, a flooded town, and a fantasy heist in the middle of a big city. But we’ve been missing something iconic lately: a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl, and this adventure is ready to deliver for a party of 4-5 6th level PCs!The mountain of Lan Biang is famed for its temple’s everburning flame and the order of mystics protecting it. But the fire’s been out for three days, and the nearby village fears an ill omen has come to pass. The adventure starts up at the village, and the PCs can learn a bit about the temple: it’s home to a group of monks famed for being able to manipulate fire in supernatural ways. As the party ascends the mountain steps they encounter a jaguar...on the run from something even more vicious, a bipedal crystalline monster!Two rounds into combat a monk by the name of Ai Hoang joins the battle. When the monster’s reduced to less than 50 hit points its heart is exposed (a hint at its weakness) but eventually it dies. The crystals around its head crack off, revealing the face of a person. It is one of the senior monks, who tells Ai and the party that a dire curse afflicts the people of the temple by transforming them into crystalline monsters. He hints that “as long as our hearts burn with hope, darkness can never take us.”After giving him a tearful farewell and decent burial, Ai joins the party. She’s a younger and more impulsive member of the order, and can fill them in on the basics: they’re ascetic martial artists who learned how to manipulate fire to do supernatural feats, that said element represents hope to them, and that she initially thought the monsters were invaders who trapped the rest of her order (she was away at the time the curse fell). The day the flame was snuffed out was when another order of white-robed monks visited the temple and gave a silver chalice as a gift to Lan Biang, and she suspects a connection.Before we go any further, there’s a bit of an unconventional game mechanic for saving the monks instead of killing them. Crystalline constructs are new monsters who come in 3 varieties: hulking, spear-throwing, and small. They’re more or less straightforward dumb bruiser monsters, although the former two are actual possessed monks, while small versions can pop off of the hulking one and thus aren’t ‘people’ of their own. When they’re reduced beneath a certain number of hit points they go berserk and their heart becomes exposed. A heart is attacked with disadvantage, but someone wielding Lan Biang fire that deals 20 or more damage in a round to it turns the monster into the original unconscious character.So what’s the deal with Lan Biang fire? Not just any mundane or magical flames will do: special braziers in the temple are lit or can be lit by a Lan Biang monk, who can carry said fire in their bare hands and deal additional damage with it on their attacks. Other people can carry the flames as well, although they automatically take more fire damage every round and it doubles for every turn they hold the fire in their hands; the monks only suffer 1d6, but can avoid this damage if they drop or get rid of the fire before the end of their turn.It’s possible for the PCs to save up to 6 monks beyond Ai. While the adventure claims that the combat gets harder “because they have more people to keep safe,” the monks all share the same stat block and are rather capable fighters in their own right. Due to action economy it shouldn’t be very hard for them and PCs to overwhelm their opponents, even if the amount of brazier flames in a given room are limited.The dungeon has four rooms, each with a lit and unlit brazier and a number of crystalline constructs to fight. The temple entrance is a rather flat and featureless plane, although the reliquary room has spear-throwing constructs with the lit brazier on a second-floor balcony. The third room is a narrow hallway with a gauntlet of crystal constructs of all kinds, where one must take the lit brazier at the start through up to two unlit braziers at the respective middle and end portions of the room.The final room is the high altar at the top of the mountain, with five unlit braziers and a silver chalice sitting where the Lan Biang’s eternal fire once burned. The artifact pulls a One Ring and telepathically promises offers of ultimate power and riches, and Ai begins to fall to temptation as crystalline growths slowly appear on her body. She needs the moral support of the PCs to resist the urge via goold role-playing or an appropriate DC 14 check that increases by 1 for every retry. The chalice will summon ectoplasm to fashion into a large transparent body bound by silver spiked chains.This adventure’s boss fight is a pretty cool one, and the terrain alone has quite a bit of variety: the dry detritus can light the entire area on fire if exposed to enough Lan Biang fire damage, and it is possible to knock people off the ledge which the chalice spirit is eager to do as it can teleport back into the arena if it itself is knocked out of the ring. The chalice spirit has a pair of spiked chain reach weapons that can grapple on a hit, and a recharge ability to summon small crystal constructs or heal them if it reaches the maximum summon number of six. It can also automatically snuff out multiple braziers per turn based on a die roll. As a reaction it can send tempting visions to a target to stun them for 1 round on a failed Wisdom save, and as a Legendary Action can do the same thing but to all Lan Biang monks at once once when it drops below 65 hit points.All in all a rather creative climax with a variety of options on both sides.Once destroyed any remaining crystalline constructs shatter, the threat dispersed for good. The monks are not a wealthy people, but can part with some funds up to 2,500 gold (which makes them sound pretty wealthy) and can teach the PCs their secrets if at least one monk survived. Said special ability teaches the Control Flames cantrip, and also gives a character a 10d6 dice pool that can be spent as a bonus action to spend any number of dice from the pool to reduce incoming fire damage by that amount. The latter ability is recharged after a long or short rest while within sight of an open flame. Sounds really neat, although given that it’s a bonus action and not a reaction means that it requires some foresight in order to use. It also doesn’t specifically state if the spent d6s eventually fade if not used in time.Thoughts So Far: It’s a rather small dungeon, and it doesn’t have much in the ways of traps or treasure, but the ‘puzzle monster’ aspect as well as the climactic battle with the chalice spirit makes up for it. My main concerns are that a party that realizes the riddle of the heart weak point can gain a significant advantage if they successfully rescue multiple monks. One thing that springs to mind is the off chance that the party contains a Monk with the Way of Four Elements subclass, particularly if they have fire magic. I can see such a player making the argument that they should be able to manipulate the Lan Biang brazier flames with reduced risk. While it may not be rules-legal, I as DM would allow such an option considering that the Four Ways Monk is an overall underpowered class and that this can give them a chance to shine.Join us next time as we cover the Lost Children, a Nepalese horror story!</blockquote>

Verification